LOS ANGELES  Laraine Day, who as the wife of Hall of Famer Leo Durocher was called "The First Lady of Baseball," has died.

Day was 87 and died of natural causes Saturday at her daughter's home in Utah where she moved following the death of her husband of 47 years, producer Michel M. Grilikhes, earlier this year, said publicist Dale Olson.

Day penned the memoir Day With Giants in 1951 about life with Durocher, to whom she was married from 1947 to 1960 when he managed first the Brooklyn Dodgers and then the New York Giants.

Day hated baseball as a girl and never attended a game, according to The Los Angeles Times. When she met Durocher, she didn't know who he was or what the Dodgers were.

Durocher, she later told fans, converted her to baseball by recounting fascinating anecdotes about players.

In 1950, to help the Giants attract more female fans, Day launched a 15-minute TV interview show with players before home games at the old Polo Grounds, according to the Times.

Born Laraine Johnson in Utah, Day changed her birth name and first won fame as nurse Mary Lamont in the film series Dr. Kildare.

Day's other movie credits included Foreign Correspondent, Mr. Lucky, I Take This Woman, The Story of Dr. Wassell, My Dear Secretary and The High and the Mighty. She appeared in her last movie The Third Voice in 1960, the year she married Grilikhes.

In 1951, Day became one of television's first female talk show hosts in The Laraine Day Show.

She also appeared in TV shows such as Playhouse 90, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Wagon Train, Murder, She Wrote, Fantasy Island, Love Boat and Lou Grant, the Times reported.

Durocher died in 1991, and Day was present in 1994 when Durocher was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

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